The Curious Case of the Kitchen Scissors
by silverfirelizard53
Summary: "Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar.'" (SS 24).


**The Curious Case of the Kitchen Scissors**

* * *

It was torrential downpour outside, great drops splatting the foggy windows like an ocean drum. She half expected the sound of an electric guitar to follow afterward, her mind reminiscing to the old days of being in the band with the boys. What a wild and crazy youth she had led! The fact that they had convinced themselves that fame and fortune would be attainable was something she'd never be able to understand. Dreams were a thing of the past.

Ms. Turner did not exactly consider herself a music teacher. Her job description would be more appropriate in saying that she babysat different age groups of snotty children for increments of thirty minutes. Not one of them wanted to hear a single thing she had to say, but she'd say it anyway because her boss unfortunately didn't pay her to just babysit. It was challenging work trying to get primary school students to sing when only a few would even open their mouths and even less actually make noise. The worst part of her job was introducing simple instruments to the older students. The fact that the bell choir got disbanded because the bells got turned into weapons was not that surprising. The children did not simply show respect anymore, and it was too much of a chore to demand it of them.

It was the last period of the day on that dreary, awful Wednesday. Ms. Turner found herself teaching major chords to a bunch of comatose nine-year-olds, demonstrating on her low-income keyboard as the clock ticked down the minutes. She was anxiously awaiting the moment when she could leave for her slightly better job of giving piano lessons to children who actually wanted them. Music was a gift to be loved and cherished, but it was definitely not meant to be force fed to miniature adults on high sugar diets.

"Dudley Dursley," she said, looking up over the edge of her lesson plans to a plump boy near the window. "If you don't sit properly, I'll make you stand in the back of the class."

With a sullen glare that she half expected to turn into a silly face the minute she averted her eyes, the boy sat back down in his chair. He was a rude child, prone to bullying the other children into giving him their sweets when the other teachers were not looking. Surprisingly, many of the adults at this school were astonishingly blind when it came to the matter of the Dursley boy. Nobody wanted to deal with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who were almost as rotten and under the distinct impression that their son was an angel. The only person who seemed immune to their powers was Ms. Turner herself, but that was only because she was almost as sour and miserable as they were. Music didn't seem to be a talent that Dudley Dursley was likely to pursue, so the two parties had a silent agreement to stay as far away from each other as possible. Plus, there was that awful rumor that Mr. Dursley had once gotten a teacher fired for disagreeing with him.

"Ow!" cried a voice as her hands outlined an F chord. "Ms. Turner, Dudley pinched me!"

"Ms. Turner! Harry lies!"

Rolling her eyes, Ms. Turner looked back up toward Dudley Dursley to see the devilish grin on his fat face. There was another peculiar thing about the boy that everyone at the school worked so hard to just completely ignore. He had a cousin that lived with him named Harry. The boy was an orphan whose parents had died when he was really young. The Dursleys had taken him in out of the goodness of their hearts, if such things actually existed. If Dudley was one way, then Harry was the exact opposite. They were as different from each other as night was different from day. Dudley was rude, obnoxious, and loud; Harry was reserved, shy, and polite.

Although she knew exactly who the real culprit was, Ms. Turner feigned ignorance. That was how all things were done in the manner of the two boys. It was simply easier that way. "Boys, behave and sit down. Class is almost over."

Harry, like always, crossed his arms and sunk lower in his seat, turning his head away from his cousin so he could stare out the window at the rain. He was such a tiny thing, always underfed and underdressed. Like all teachers, Ms. Turner had to take classes to recognize warnings about the dangers of child abuse. Even though there appeared to be no physical damage on his pitiful frame, this had to qualify as some form of endangerment. However, she wasn't entirely sure, so she would look at what the other teachers were doing. Nobody seemed to care or even notice, so Ms. Turner just assumed she was overreacting. Besides, he belonged to the Dursleys and one messed with them.

She at least wished they would give the boy a haircut once in a while, however. That was one thing about the two boys: Dudley always seemed well groomed and taken care of while Harry could have just been living in the closet. Over his bright green eyes, his jet-black hair grew everywhere. He reminded Ms. Turner of those shaggy purebred dogs one sees on television all the time but never in real life. His hair simply grew that way, and even the school nurse had expressed the insane desire to attack it with a pair of scissors.

Just then, the bell rang to be let out of class. The children, who moments before had been on the verge of falling asleep, sprang out of their seats with the energy of a thousand chimpanzees. Ms. Turner sighed and stood up. Grabbing her umbrella from the little corner of her room, she herded the children out the classroom door and toward the parking lot. Most students walked, but there were a few cars belonging to the people who had decided to carpool today. Mrs. Dursley was among them, their great suburban parked like a great predator among a herd of helpless deer.

"Dudley! Harry!" she squealed. "Get in the car! We're getting haircuts!"

Ms. Turner breathed a sigh of relief that the poor boy was finally going to go get his hair cut. The two nine-year-olds sprinted off through the rain to her car, holding their coats over their heads like umbrellas. However, Dudley rammed into Harry halfway through, which sent the poor boy flying right into a giant puddle of filthy rain water.

Mrs. Dursley gave a scream of furry, not at Dudley, but at Harry. Shrieking hysterics about her stupid car, she grabbed an old blanket from the backseat and threw it at him to sit on. Ms. Turner might've said something to intervene, but no one else did, so she stayed silent. At least the boy would be getting a haircut.

When all the children were finally either picked up or shipped off on the school bus, Ms. Turner returned to her classroom. Wet shoes squeaking on the tiled floor, she gathered her papers up to get ready for piano lessons. That was when she spotted it. A green book bag had been left in the corner of the room. It was in fairly bad condition, as if the owner used it for a shield more often than a device to carry school books around. She unzipped the silver zipper and looked inside. There were several papers crammed in the bottom, along with broken pens, chewed pencils, and moldy lunch remnants. One of the papers declared that the items belonged to none other than Harry Potter himself.

Ms. Turner sighed and picked up the bag. The Dursleys lived on her way home. She could simply drop the bag off at their house, and then she could be on her way home to a quiet sanctuary where children did not exist.

o – o – o – o – o – o – o

Harry was shivering. Sitting on top of the towel in the back of the suburban, he wrapped his arms and legs tightly around his body to get the warmth inside him. He half wished his aunt would turn the heat up, but she said it was way too hot inside and that he shouldn't have been rolling around in puddles. Dudley stuck his tongue out behind her back, but Harry ignored it. He knew that if he retaliated, Dudley would screw up his face, wail, and Aunt Petunia would turn around and start fussing. They might crash if she started doing that, but Harry wondered if it might possibly be warmer that way. It would at least be more amazing. He could ride in an emergency truck and visit a hospital.

And a hospital was probably a whole lot more interesting than his cupboard.

"This new place is supposedly really good. They'll cut your hair right this time," Aunt Petunia was saying to him. He wasn't really paying attention to her, however. He highly doubted they would be able to give his hair a proper cut. Unlike everyone else in his class, Harry seemed to have problems with hair cuts. It would grow back almost immediately, and Aunt Petunia could never figure out why. She would get so mad at him, although he had absolutely no explanation. How do you prove that you don't know how something happens? It was just like that time he had wound up on the school roof. It had just happened, and somehow that wasn't the answer people wanted to hear.

They pulled into the parking lot. It was a small little place attached to a hardware store. The sign over the building read "Tim's Trims". Aunt Petunia marched them inside. It was even smaller inside, and there was only one man sitting behind the counter. He smiled warmly when they came in, however.

"What can I help you with?"

Aunt Petunia sniffed, and pointed at Harry, who still stood shivering. "He needs a haircut, and it better be a good one."

The man's smile faltered at her attitude but led Harry to a barber's chair in front of a mirror. He helped him clamber into the seat and took off his glasses.

"Now, what do you want done? Just a trim, I imagine. You probably want it thinned, don't you? His hair is awfully thick."

Aunt Petunia's long fingernails scratched Harry's scalp as she ran her hand through his hair. "I want it as short as it will go without it sticking straight up. His fringe needs to be long enough to hide that awful scar on his forehead, however."

The man lifted up the hair in front Harry's face and inspected the curious, lightning-bolt shaped scar. "Hey, that's pretty cool, little man."

"It's hideous," replied Aunt Petunia. Dudley snickered.

The barber said nothing, but his eyebrows were raised defensively. Picking up his tools, he then set to work on Harry's thick mane of dark hair. The young boy scrunched up his eyes as he watched the locks fall past his face. For what seemed like twenty hours to Harry, the man cut his hair. When he finally stepped back to inspect his handiwork, Aunt Petunia let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank you," she said, opening the clasps of her handbag.

"That's much better, isn't it?" asked the barber.

The back of Harry's neck itched, and his head felt too light. "I suppose so."

Dudley whined for sweets as Aunt Petunia paid the barber. It was still raining outside, great clouds rolling across the surface of the sky. They rushed back to the suburban, where Dudley forced Harry back into the unwanted back seat. As they drove home, the small, dark-haired boy watched the rain-drenched foliage outside his car window. It was then that he noticed it: as his reflection stared back at him from the glassy surface, he saw his hair literally grow longer. The black locks descended lower past his ears, back to the spot where they had previously occupied.

Nervous fear gripped Harry's stomach as he glanced to the front of the car where his aunt was trying to reason with his now screaming cousin. She would definitely notice this, and he was sure she would be angry. Maybe he could slip into his cupboard before anyone would notice. Food would be an issue however, but he could always just eat his socks of course. They might even be able to make a documentary about the boy who lived completely off socks.

It was a nightmare when they pulled into the driveway.

"What did you do to your hair?" Aunt Petunia shrieked when she whipped around to grab her purse.

Harry felt himself shrinking. He imagined that if he grew smaller while his hair grew longer, he would soon look like a walking end of a mop. "I didn't do anything."

However, like always, Aunt Petunia didn't listen to him. She grabbed his arm in a tight grip and marched him into the house. Dudley followed after them, giggling stupidly at his poor cousin's misfortune. Harry wasn't sure if he had ever seen Aunt Petunia so angry, and he had seen her angry loads of times.

"I just spend all that money on you, and this is how you repay me?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean anything!"

Aunt Petunia forced him into the kitchen chair. His Uncle Vernon had yet to arrive home, but Harry was glad that he hadn't. If there was one person on this planet that was scarier than Aunt Petunia, it was Uncle Vernon. Harry could almost see that great big mustache bristling at the thought of this new crime. Staring down at the clean, spotless linoleum, the little boy realized that he still hadn't changed out of his wet clothes from earlier.

"I'll just have to fix this myself," Aunt Petunia said, pulling a pair of kitchen scissors from one of her drawers.

Time seemed to pass slowly for Harry as she loomed over him and cut that first lock. However, Aunt Petunia did not stop there. Her hand swept back and forth with fluid motions, and suddenly there was a a steady stream of falling black hair. Behind his glasses, Harry's bright green eyes were huge as he stared at the pile on the ground. On the other side of the table, Dudley begin laughing. When Harry asked him what was so funny, his fat cousin was chuckling so hard that he was unable to articulate any human language that Harry could understand.

"How much are you cutting off?" Harry asked his aunt nervously.

"All but your stupid fringe."

He flinched, causing his aunt to accidentally cut his scalp with the scissors. Dudley was laughing so hard now that he had fallen off his chair. Not only was Harry's scalp stinging, but so were the corner of his eyes. He brushed away the tears roughly, not wanting to cry in front of his now hiccupping cousin. The pile of hair on the floor was now so large that he was sure they could've made a new Harry.

"There," said Aunt Petunia, trying desperately not to laugh.

Harry hurried out of the kitchen and to the nearest bathroom so he could see his reflection in the mirror. The sight in front of him was terrifying. It had to be him that was looking back because that little boy was dangerously close to tears. Where there had been jet black hair moments before was now uneven clumps of cropped hair, bits of blood, and an oddly long fringe. Harry didn't even bother going back into the kitchen. He just crawled into his cupboard and lay down in the dark. It was good that he did so too, because from what he could hear, Dudley had gotten sick from laughing too hard.

o – o – o – o – o – o – o

Ms. Turner thought longingly of a warm bowl of canned soup in front of the television as she pulled onto the street where the Dursleys lived. It was the kind of neighborhood that she half expected to see on some obnoxious sitcom where everyone leads perfectly annoying lives. The houses were all shaped the same, and every single one of the yards had been recently mowed. Hadn't these people ever heard of individuality? There wasn't even a single one of those adorable pink flamingos.

She pulled onto the drive of Number Four and grabbed the green book bag from the passenger seat. It was still raining slightly, but it had settled to a slow drizzle. Ms. Turner crossed to their front door, and impatiently rang the doorbell. The outline of a woman could be seen through the curtains, and beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley answered the door. She looked annoyed.

"Yes?"

Ms. Turner held up the bag. "Hi, I'm Nancy Turner, the boys' music teacher. Harry left this in my class today and I thought he might like this back. You were on my way home, so I figured I'd save you the trip."

"Oh," said the woman. "Harry! Come here!"

They were obviously in the middle of dinner. Ms. Turner looked curiously down the long hallway to the kitchen, where she could see Dudley's face poking around the wall. Then Harry came into sight, and it took all the music teacher's willpower not to shout out loud.

His hair and be cut so close to his scalp that he was nearly bald in some places. When Ms. Turner had expressed the desire for him to get a haircut, she had only been imagining a normal one. The boy was already laughed at for his diminutive frame, baggy clothes, and tapped glasses. They might as well send him to school naked.

Harry seemed to have noticed this. He would not meet Ms. Turner's eyes, and his own appeared slightly red. She assumed he must have been crying...poor boy. When he reached out for his book bag, Mrs. Dursley gave him such a look that he cowered like a helpless puppy. A small fury burned within the music teacher's heart. There was no one around to look at for advice right now, so she would have to decide for herself.

"Mrs. Dursley, why is his hair like that?"

The sharp woman looked affronted. "He got his hair cut. Haven't you ever had your hair cut?"

Ms. Turner watched Harry slink back into the kitchen, a hand on his tender and near bare scalp. She then rounded on Mrs. Dursley. "I think you're abusing that child! I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

"I'd like to see you try!" came the snarled reply.

o – o – o – o – o – o – o

A substitute greeted them when they went to music class the next afternoon. Harry, who had woken up to find a full head of hair on his head (and was grounded for such), felt his heart sink slightly as they looked at this young, enthusiastic man. Dudley was smirking with a very strange satisfaction.

"But where's Ms. Turner?" asked a small girl with pigtails.

The substitute bounced on his heels, smiling at them all as though this was the happiest moment of his life. "I'm afraid Ms. Turner is no longer your teacher."

"Why?" Harry asked.

The man gave no answer but asked what they knew about Beethoven. Dudley, who was above paying attention to such trivial matters, leaned over and gave Harry a nasty grin. "Mum and Dad got Ms. Turner fired."


End file.
